Religion, Relatedness, and Belonging in Ukraine: Catherine Wanner

 

2022 Bohdan Bociurkiw Memorial Lecture

Religion, Relatedness, and Belonging in Ukraine: Dr. Catherine Wanner

Thursday, 24 March 2022

 

This talk compared the tenor of the religious landscape in Ukraine prior to the Russian invasion and considered some of the likely changes that will result from the war, given the Moscow Patriarch's support for the Russian World and for violent means to realize it. Although religion has been weaponized and securitized to advance certain political agendas and protect state sovereignty, these efforts must contend with vernacular religious practices that inform relatedness and belonging.

Catherine Wanner is a professor of history, anthropology, and religious studies at The Pennsylvania State University. Using ethnographic and archival methods, her research centres on religion, human rights, and conflict mediation. Her most recent book is Everyday Religiosity and the Politics of Belonging in Ukraine (Cornell, 2022). She is the author or editor of five other books on Ukraine.